For at least twenty years, I have enjoyed walking labyrinths. Labyrinths are maze-like structures that have been used as spiritual tools for centuries. For the past seven years, I’ve been walking labyrinths throughout the northeastern United States, and blogging about them. To learn more about labyrinths, check out this page at the Labyrinth Society. To find labyrinths near you, try the Worldwide Labyrinth Locator.

On Monday, I traveled to Bucks and Montgomery Counties to walk labyrinths. The second labyrinth I drove to was at the Doylestown Hospital Health and Wellness Center in Warrington. This labyrinth holds a special place in my heart. I walked this labyrinth once before, eighteen years ago, long before I discovered the Worldwide Labyrinth Locator, long before I was regularly blogging about labyrinths. Back in 2007, I was in a holding pattern in my life, waiting to be ordained and to begin my new career as a pastor. I was impatient and anxious for the waiting to end. I felt like walking a labyrinth could help me to come to terms with that, and calm myself.

This time around, the question I carried into the labyrinth was a direct outgrowth of my last question. I had already asked, “What do I want freedom from?” Now I was asking, What do I want freedom for?

As I approached the labyrinth the second time on Monday, I was surprised by its condition. It’s of a seven-circuit medieval design, made completely of cobblestones. What was surprising to me was that there was no distinction between the path and the walls — except that the cobblestones were angled and rounded at the turns. If you look at the picture above, you can see that lack of clarity, but in person it was even more unclear. According to the Worldwide Labyrinth Locator, it’s been here since 2001, so I assumed that it must have been different back then, and indeed back when I walked it the first time. It must have had paint or something on it that’s since washed away.

Yet I found it easy to walk. Because I’ve walked so many labyrinths over the years, I knew what was coming. It’s practice that enabled this to be a good walk. Perhaps that’s what I’m free to do — practice.

And perhaps that’s the good news of grace — that it’s all practice. If I really do believe that everything I have, everything I am, is pure gift from God, with no strings attached, then everything we do is just practice. There’s no tournament. There’s no game. There’s no challenge we must win. It’s all just practice. And that means that everything I do is practice. Do I want to get better at walking labyrinths? Practice. Do I want to get better at writing? Practice. Do I want to get better at playing chess? Practice.

And in the end, there’s no goal — the practice itself is the goal. Even my work as a pastor is just practice — and I have been getting better at that, step by step. I want to be free to practice, and steadily, over time, improve.

Now, I found an old email I wrote to a friend in 2007, in which I described my first walk at this labyrinth in Warrington. I want to quote a few things from that email here:

The labyrinth was outside, as I expected. But it wasn’t in a lovely grove. It was in front of the building, a bit off to the side, just about in the parking lot. Not the sort of place I’d think of for solitary reflection. But I approached it. I didn’t even recognize it as a labyrinth. The walls weren’t clearly defined. It’s made of cobblestones, all identical. At first glance, it just looks like a large circle, with concentric rings of cobblestones. But looking closer, much closer, you could barely see that at each turn, the stones were angled. If you looked really closely, you could just barely make out the path. Fascinating, I thought. Fascinating.

I stood on the edge, tentative. I tend to do that. I know it’s best to lay your cards out on the table before you enter a labyrinth, because you can only really get out of it what you bring in. If you go in with a vague, half-formed question, you’ll likely come out with a vague, half-formed answer. I knew my question. Or rather, my desire. I felt so out-of-sorts, so aimless, so rudderless. I wanted to find balance. Direction. Wholeness. I’m scared that I’m neglecting my current job, that I’m failing there because I’m not focusing well enough. I’ve wondered if I’ve spent the right amount of time with friends, and emailing friends. I’ve wondered if I’ve spent the right amount of time with Heather. Have I been exercising enough? Too much? How about reading? How about watching my diet? I just can’t find the balance in my life right now. I feel pulled in so many directions, stuck in an unstable equilibrium held up by forces around me, not by anything inside me, and certainly not by God.

So here I stood, staring into this seemingly un-labyrinthine labyrinth, looking at an indiscernible path, standing on the edge of a parking lot. I asked for balance, for guidance, for direction. And I started walking. It soon became clear to me that it’s not that hard to follow this path, so long as you just look at what’s right in front of you. When I looked toward the middle, I saw nothing but stones, no walls, no path, no direction. But just ahead, the road was clear. I kept going. I never had to trust the labyrinth before the way I had to trust this one. For all I knew, it could have been constructed wrong. It might have spit me out the other side, without ever reaching the center. It might have been a maze, not a labyrinth…I might have faced choices. I didn’t know. I had to trust.

I approached the center, and I walked straight into the middle. The center of this labyrinth was maybe eight or nine concentric rings of cobblestones, in the center of which was a single circle, surrounded by the tightest circle of eight stones, which easily looked like a cross with an identical background. Or perhaps the opposite. I soon had the urge to step back. I walked backward to the outer edge of the center. It felt like I was on holy ground. This journey I’m on, this single, solitary, overarching journey, is a journey with one center, one destination, one designer. And I glimpsed her in the center of that labyrinth. Just an image of her. Nothing blinding. But clear as crystal. Clear as day. Clear as water. Clear as light.

It’s funny how I really remembered none of that when I walked it again on Monday. I had no memory that this labyrinth was always a little hard to walk. I had no memory of the details of what I experienced then. But that’s part of the point, I guess. All these insights I always find in labyrinths — I can’t hold onto them forever. They fade. And that’s why I practice. To keep finding that clarity, that insight, that wisdom, that comfort.